Ihara, L., Wu, G. orcid.org/0000-0003-0795-8898, Cavaleiro, A. et al. (2 more authors) (2025) Environmental Impact of Physical Vapour Deposition and Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition Technologies for Deposition of Diamond-like Carbon Coatings for Green Tribology. Coatings, 15 (2). 218. ISSN 2079-6412
Abstract
With low friction and high hardness, diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings are a prominent surface engineering solution for tribosystems in various applications. Their versatility stems from their varying composition, facilitated by different deposition techniques, which affect their properties. However, environmental impact is often overlooked in coating design. The objective of this paper is to assess the resource efficiency of four different common deposition techniques, thus identifying critical factors for sustainable DLC deposition. The coatings were deposited in one single chamber, enabling a direct comparison of the resource consumption of each technology. Expenditure of electric energy and consumables per volumetric output accounted for the environmental impact of manufacturing the coatings, which was evaluated across the indicators of damage to human health, damage to ecosystems, and resource scarcity. Electric energy use, dictated by deposition rate, was demonstrated to be the most significant factor contributing to the environmental impact. The environmental impact of PECVD and μW-PECVD was comparable and remarkably lower than that of dcMS and HiPIMS, the latter being the least energy efficient process, with the lowest output rate but highest energy expenditure. Thus, μW-PECVD could be considered the ‘greenest’ production method. These findings are consequential for coaters to efficiently produce good-quality DLCs with low environmental impact.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | diamond-like carbon; PVD; PECVD; HiPIMS; environmental impact analysis |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mechanical Engineering (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mechanical Engineering (Leeds) > Institute of Functional Surfaces (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 860246 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 28 May 2025 11:08 |
Last Modified: | 28 May 2025 11:08 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/coatings15020218 |
Related URLs: | |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:226708 |